


These Rooms Filled With Fairytales

by John_lzhc



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-21
Updated: 2011-04-21
Packaged: 2017-10-18 11:46:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_lzhc/pseuds/John_lzhc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt <em>Amy - her life never makes sense</em></p><p>She never does remember why she cried, but she remembers the dream. Or, she remembers parts.<br/>She remembers that it was wonderful and terrible and the worst thing in the world and amazing beyond belief.<br/>And the raggedy doctor. <em>Him</em> she remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Rooms Filled With Fairytales

**Author's Note:**

> Dyslexic Disclaimer: There is a good chance the following work contains spelling errors and typos. I'm aware of this, and I'm working on it. Most stuff is proofread, but sometimes errors will slip through. If you could either A: _politely point out spelling mistakes and appropriate corrections (British English please)_ , or B: _ignore them_ , that would be very helpful.

_Seven and Three Quarters_

Someone's shouting her.

“Amelia? Amelia!”

Then someone's shaking her awake, clutching her shoulder so hard it hurts,even through her coat (why is she sleeping in her coat?), jerking her back and forth until she opens her sleepy eyes and sits up.

“Amelia, why's your case outside full of clothes, why are you dressed!?”

“Just where did you think you were going, young lady?”

Amelia looks around, startled, confused. Looks down and can't remember changing back out of her pyjamas. Then-

“Well? Don't ignore your parents, Amelia.” Ant Sally walks in, fuming, with- Amelia's little case that should be tucked safely under her bed, not soaked through on the grass. Amelia looks up, squints, and...

“Mum. Dad.” They all stare at her. “There was... there was a man with a box, and you weren't here any more.” Then she burst into tears.

 

___________________________________________

 

She never does remember why she cried, but she remembers the dream. Or, she remembers parts.

She remembers that it was wonderful and terrible and the worst thing in the world and amazing beyond belief.

And the raggedy doctor. _Him_ , she remembers.

 

___________________________________________

 

 _Nine_

She stays 'Amelia' until she's nine, but she doesn't like it, not any more. “Too fairytale” she snaps, when they ask. They say: she always liked it before. They say: she likes fairy tales. They say: it's her name, and she doesn't have to like it, just live with it. The (second) psych says: she dissociates from her environment, and rejecting her name is another way of distancing herself, just like the imaginary friend. (She bites him. He's an idiot).

Three days after her ninth birthday there's a new boy in the school.

“Hello, I'm Rory”

“I'm Amelia, but I don't like it.”

“Oh. Why not?”

“Just don't.”

He says: “Can I call you Amy then?”

He'll do.

 

___________________________________________

 

 _Thirteen_

The third psychiatrist is less of an idiot than the second. But useless nevertheless: spends three years obsessing over the significance of the swimming pool in the library (“Would you say you where feeling very displaced, or chaotic, when you where seven, Amy?”). She gets thrown out the second she bites him.

The freedom from sitting down every week to talk about how she's feeling, and what does she want from these little sessions is bliss. No one to account to, no one to explain herself to, only Aunt Sally to answer to when she talks Rory into another monumentally daft scheme...

Psych number four comes six months later.

 

___________________________________________

 

 _Thirteen and a Half_

“So, Amelia-”

“Amy.”

“My apologies. Amy.” Dr. Hemming smiles, placating, as she jots down the preference. “Would you like to tell me a little about why you're here?”

“They think I need helping.”

“Do you?”

Amy shrugs.

“I met this man, and they thinks he's imaginary.”

“I see. Who's 'they'?”

Another shrug, a frown of confusion.

“Oh for goodness sake.” Amy glances around, startled “It's because she keeps- she just starts.... acting like we're not in the room.” She looks to her right, stares very hard at the people on the couch.

“With all respect,” Dr. Hemming murmurs “she is a teenager.”

“Not like that,” yes, it's defiantly the people on the couch talking “Like she genuinely doesn't know we exist. Then when she finally notices she'll sit and stare at us like she doesn't know us and- look, she's doing it now!”

They both seemed very distressed about something. Dr. Hemming nods, and looking to Amy, raising an eyebrow.

“Amy? Are you doing 'it' now?”

“Doing what?” Amy asks, confusion blossoming again.

“What your parents just described.”

Amy stares at the people on the couch very hard, for a long time. She's not sure she knows an answer that makes sense.

___________________________________________

 

Amy doesn't know what 'dissociative episodes' are, but people sure make a lot of fuss about them.

 

___________________________________________

 _Fourteen_

She gets lost in the British Museum on a school trip, wandering for hours, looking for an exhibit she's sure is there. They tell her there's no great big ancient black cube covered in strange marks in the building, where had she heard that? She doesn't know, she just- expected there to be one.

 

___________________________________________

 

 _Fifteen_

“Rory?”

“Yeah?”

“Don't ever grow a pony-tail. You'll look stupid.”

“Um, OK. Where did that come from?”

“Nowhere. Just don't.”

 

___________________________________________

 

Sometimes she hears whispers in the night. From the other side of the wall, from inside her own head, from some place else entirely, the echo of voices she thinks she should know. Sometimes, lying in the dark looking up at the stars, Amy feels like the universe runs past her, just out of touch. Sometimes she feels like she's forgotten something.

It doesn't get any better when Rory starts staying over more nights than not, but it gets... less worse.

 

___________________________________________

 

 _Nineteen_

“Amy! Are you ready?” Mum calls up the stairs. “There's a Roman soldier here looking for you!”

Amy rolls her eyes; honestly, they're not even at the fancy dress party yet.

“Send him up!” She hollers back, admiring her costume in the mirror. She doesn’t care what anyone says, 'kissogram-in-slutty-police-outfit' is so a valid costume. She just hopes Rory doesn't have a shorter skirt than her. And speak of the devil...

“Wow...” Rory breaths from the door.

Amy pivots slowly on the spot, pouting, hips to the side, leaning seductively against the wardrobe, swings one leg over the other and-

“You look- amazing.” He manages, just about addressing her face rather than her thighs. She stares at him, that creeping shadow of horror she's come to dread sneaking out from the back of her mind. “So? What do you think?”

Rory gives a twirl, cloak spinning out around him. She can't speak, feels like there's something on fire in her chest.

“Amy, are you alright?” She shakes her head, stays dumb. He steps forwards, reaches out, she jerks back, can't work out why she's so scared (of him, for him), can't work out why she sees hills under the night and the death of everything.

 

___________________________________________

 

 _Twenty one_

“You're my mum”

“You're my tiny little dad”

There's a little part of her thinking it's my wedding day, I can't do this on my wedding day. But a bigger part thinks it's my wedding day and my mum's here, and that's just a thought of pure joy.

And she's not doing it, not having yet another 'dissociative episode' (fucking psychiatrists), not really. It feels more like... coming out of one, hard and fast, an episode that's lasted fourteen years. But still...

“Do you feel you've forgotten something really important?

...she's not quite there yet.

 

___________________________________________

 

 _Twenty one and Married_

“It's the Doctor. How did we forget the Doctor?”

Just like that, it all makes sense again.

 

 **[END]**


End file.
